8 September: Only Fools and Horses

40 years ago in 1981, Only Fools and Horses first appeared on TV. 10 things you might not know about the show:

1. Although it's consistently voted as one of Britain's favourite sitcoms, and the final episode, Time On Our Hands, was watched by 24.3 million viewers in 1996, the first series was actually a bit of a flop. The only reason any more were made at all is because the BBC at the time had a policy of making two series of anything. Perhaps they knew some things were slow burners.
2. The show ran for 7 seasons and there are 64 episodes in total. They were all written by John Sullivan.
3. So what's it about? The central characters are two brothers, Del and Rodney, who live in a council flat. Del has been looking after his much younger brother Rodney since their mother died and their father left. The pair are market traders in Peckham, South London, selling dodgy goods from a suitcase and dreaming of becoming millionaires, which they finally do at the end of the final series.
4. John Sullivan is also the writer of the 1970s sitcom Citizen Smith. His initial idea for is next show was a sitcom about Football, but the BBC weren't interested. After that he came up with the idea of a cockney market trader in 1980s London, which was accepted.
5. It was almost called Readies, which is slang for cash and especially £50 notes. However, the title eventually used came from a phrase, “only fools and Horses work for a living”, which fitted in nicely with Del's lifestyle.
6. It's John Sullivan who sings the opening credits, not Nicholas Lyndhurst, the actor who plays Rodney, as many believe. On the subject of the theme song, the first series had a different one, a saxophone theme produced by Ronnie Hazlehurst.
7. The block of flats used as Nelson Mandela House is not in Peckham. It's not even in London. It's actually in Bristol.
8. Trigger's real name is Colin Ball.
9. Del's eventual partner, Raquel, was only meant to appear once, in a Christmas special called Dates, in which Del signs up to a Dating Agency under the pseudonym Derek Duvel, and is set up on a date with actress Raquel Turner played by Tessa Peake-Jones. However, after a year she appeared again, and became a regular character. It wasn't the first time Tessa Peake-Jones had appeared on the show. In the very first episode, she is an extra in the Nag's Head, and is the first person Del greets when he walks in.
10. Only Fools and Horses is so iconically British that it featured in Danny Boyle’s Closing Ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games. A Yellow Reliant Regal van and two characters dressed as Batman and Robin appeared on the stage in reference to the episode Heroes and Villains.

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